The Zamość Ghetto was a

Jewish ghetto In the Jewish diaspora, a Jewish quarter (also known as jewry, ''juiverie'', ''Judengasse'', Jewynstreet, Jewtown, or proto-ghetto) is the area of a city traditionally inhabited by Jews. Jewish quarters, like the Jewish ghettos in Europe, were ...

created by

Nazi Germany Nazi Germany (lit. "National Socialist State"), ' (lit. "Nazi State") for short; also ' (lit. "National Socialist Germany") (officially known as the German Reich from 1933 until 1943, and the Greater German Reich from 1943 to 1945) was ...

in the city of Zamość,

Lublin province The Lublin Voivodeship, also known as the Lublin Province (Polish language, Polish: ''województwo lubelskie'' ), is a Voivodeships of Poland, voivodeship (province) of Poland, located in southeastern part of the country. It was created on Januar ...

Poland Poland, officially the Republic of Poland, is a country in Central Europe. It is divided into 16 administrative provinces called voivodeships, covering an area of . Poland has a population of over 38 million and is the fifth-most populous ...

in spring 1941 and was liquidated in October 1942 when the remaining inhabitants were deported to the Belzec extermination camp.

Background

Zamość, in western Poland, was part of the Lublin district during

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

. The district comprised over 1,660 communities with more than half a million people. The Jews of the district primarily lived in towns and in the district city of Zamość, where they made up about half of the population.

Establishment

Immediately after the conquest of Poland in September 1939, Jews were conscripted for forced labor. In December 1939, the German occupiers ordered the Jews of the city to establish a Judenrat, which included 12 members. The initial chairperson was Ben Zion Lubliner. In January 1940, Mieczyslaw Garfinkel replaced Lubliner. Many Jews from the city fled to the Soviet Union and to areas conquered by it in Poland, leaving about half of the 10,000 Jews in the city. These were the individuals who were confined to the ghetto upon its establishment in spring 1941, along with about a thousand Jews expelled from western Polish areas annexed by Germany. (known as " Warthegau")

Transports

In spring 1941, the Jews were concentrated in one of the poorest areas of the city. Initially, the area was not fenced, and the Jews were allowed to enter and exit, but only for limited periods each day. On April 1, 1942, the first transport departed as part of Operation Reinhardt. On April 11, a transport departed carrying 3,000 Jews to their deaths in Belzec. On May 1, 1942, about a thousand Jews were deported from

North Rhine-Westphalia North Rhine-Westphalia (german: Nordrhein-Westfalen, ; li, Noordrien-Wesfale ; nds, Noordrhien-Westfalen; ksh, Noodrhing-Wäßßfaale), commonly shortened to NRW (), is a States of Germany, state (''Land'') in Western Germany. With more tha ...

through the

Dortmund Dortmund (; Westphalian nds, Düörpm ; la, Tremonia) is the third-largest city in North Rhine-Westphalia after Cologne and Düsseldorf, and the eighth-largest city of Germany, with a population of 588,250 inhabitants as of 2021. It is the la ...

train station to the Zamość Ghetto. From October 16 to 18, 1942, the ghetto was liquidated and its inhabitants were sent to be exterminated in Belzec. A few hundred forced laborers remained in the former ghetto area to clean it up and sort the belongings of the murdered for German use.

Labor Camp

On November 12, 1942, the Zamość area was declared a special settlement area of the General Government for Germans. The inhabitants of the Polish villages in the area were evacuated, and part of the former ghetto area served as a temporary transit camp.

References

External links